Loretta Brabin at the University of Manchester, UK, and her colleagues gave questionnaires to 553 girls offered the Cervarix vaccine in the UK between October 2007 and September 2008. “The vaccine actually made them more aware of the risks of sex,” she says.

Six per cent of girls were forbidden from being vaccinated by their parents. Of these, just under half said they wanted to receive the vaccine. “This is the first insight into how a girl decides whether the vaccine is important to her and who influences her decision,” says Brabin.